Well it's been over three days now since "the ninja dog" has officially moved to her permanent home and family. Poor thing already has abandonment issues, from her original home, to the shelter, to our home, and now to somebody else home. I'm hoping she doesn't get too shock at the fact she moved again. Since her new owner works with my wife, I get to at least hear some stories on how the dog's adjusting. Sure enough, it looks like the ninja dog is going through the same cycle of reactions like she had when we first rescued her. From what I've heard, she's been keeping herself isolated in her crate most of the time. It could be that she's a little overwhelmed at the increased amount of people that she is living with now, so she is on defensive mode. She has pretty much grown attached to her primary owner though, so I'm sure she'll open herself up to the other people at that home as the time goes by. It's funny, I miss that ninja dog, but at the same time I'm also glad that it's just the two dogs again. Oh well, things are back to normal I guess.

Movies I've Seen Recently...

Quantum Of Solace  (2008)  C+

As a James Bond movie, "Quantum Of Solace" feels more like another typical action-spy movie than a true James Bond movie. It does not help that the down to earth realistic spy drama that the
previous Bond film "Casino Royale" has shown, is hard to live up to. The direction by Marc Forster seems all over the place, as he seems to can't decide whether he wants a realistic spy drama Bond, or an over the top one. Daniel Craig may still be one of the best James Bonds in movie history, but his talents are mostly wasted by a film that's focused too much on the action sequences, that the moments of dialogue in this movie just feel like transition periods to the next action scene. I also thought that some plot devices were made just to prove a point, as opposed to actually trying to make sense with the overall story. As an action-spy movie, I did more or less enjoy the film, but I thought that the charm of watching a James Bond movie was really lacking in this.

Futurama : Bender's Game  (2008)  B-

What do you get when you combine science fiction, slapstick comedy, a parody of Lord of the Rings, funny pop-culture references, and a message about alternative fuel? You get "Futurama : Bender's Game." Out of the first three Futurama movies that has been released so far, I would say that this is probably the funniest of them all, but only if you are willing to get sucked into the craziness that this film is. There is no other way to describe this movie other than crazy, especialy when you have a story about a robot in the year 3000+, whose over
imagination created an alternate fantasy mythical world resembling
something from Dungeons and Dragons, which was an indirect result of an effort to destroy a dependency on fuel, so that people are forced to use alternative fuel. Sure there are plot holes, the characters aren't always in-character, and some things just seem stupid, but that's because everything that happens in this movie are there just to serve the comedy.

The Hills Have Eyes 2  (2007)  C-

Instead of regular normal people being hunted, attacked, and preyed by cannibal mutants, "The Hills Have Eyes 2" have instead army reserve trainees as the victims. Our protagonists have weapons and should have some military training, which would mean that they should give these mutants some problems right? Nope. These army reserves are written to be stupid kids, doing stupid things, that get them stupidly killed. As a horror movie, The Hills Have Eyes 2 is just adequate, but it did contain some uniquely violent murders like a certain porta-potty scene. The movie is admittedly just such an insignificant throwaway film, that it has little redeeming value to watch it.

Hook  (1991)  C

I was still a young boy when I saw "Hook" years ago, and I remember loving it. Now that I've seen it again I can see why that was, because it's through and through a movie for young kids. There's hardly much in this movie that an adult can truly appreciate, because every scene feels like they were thrown in there just to please kids, even if it really does not make sense. Plot holes, character flaws, or silly dialogs do not mean much for children, but they are hard to ignore for an adult. I did however appreciate the story about a Peter Pan who left Neverland to live in the real world, but gets sucked back in that fantasy land, when his children are kidnapped by Captain Hook. Robin Williams as an adult Peter Pan, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, and the colorful eye pleasing visuals do work really well though, but overall "Hook" is really just a "kids-flick" with some mild amusements for adults.

Random Cigarettes, Random Wedding Bands

Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know (link)

Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread (link)

The Matrix Runs on Windows (video)

Lil' O'Reilly Election Results (video)

Gary Busey Directs His Own Interview (video)

Russian Furniture Store Prank (video)

100 Movie Spoilers in 5 Minutes (video)

Real bears playing Hockey (video)

Super Powers (video)

Mirror’s Edge 2D (game)

Southern California has lately pretty much had "fire season" year round, and this past day was a doozy. This is the nearest our home has been to any kind of fire problem by far, and it's definitely more relevant that I pay attention to this situation more so than I ever did. Me and my wife were actually in Orange County for about an hour, and walking around over there, with ash falling from the sky was just pretty darn bad. Air quality was definitely a problem, plus an ash fell in my left eye which was pretty irritating and a bit painful. On our way home via freeway, we could literally see the flames as we drove by, and the large smoke surrounding us from above was quite a sight. In fact, literally minutes after we drove by on that freeway, they closed it down in both directions. If we stayed longer in Orange County just a few minutes longer, then we would have been stuck down there for several hours, as it's a very far detour to go around that freeway closure.

This fire in Orange County is being called by the media as the "freeway complex fire" or the "triangle complex fire." The name was probably created because the majority of people in SoCal aren't too familiar with the names of the cities that has the fires, and saying "triangle complex fire" also kinda indicates how it's three different fires in that area. By the way, the media for some reason are interviewing people who did not follow the mandatory evacuation, and how they saved their homes because they did not follow orders. Statements saying how "if we did not stay behind and stopped the fire nearby our home ourselves, we would have lost our home," and then the news talks about how their neighbor's house is on fire. Is that the lesson people are suppose to learn about these interviews? If there is a fire nearby, stay home to protect it?

In other news of the past day, my car got a flat tire by running over a nail. I had to get two new rear tires AGAIN. Ofcourse that's just a minor inconvenience compare to those losing their homes due to the fire.

In other other news, later today if things go according to plan, the new owners of the "ninja dog" we rescued from the shelter, will be taking her to her new home. It's going to once again be just the two dogs again for this household pretty soon.

Well, it looks like I got my answer as to why my Verizon DSL was crapping out, and my suspicions were closer to the truth than even I expected. Apparently, the FiOS service that has recently been implemented in our neighborhood is actually causing a problem with the DSL network in our area. That answer was told to me in person by a Verizon representative who was going door to door on my street. The guy did not know the technical reason why there is a conflict between FiOS and DSL, but I can only guess that it has to do with Verizon's network bandwidth getting sucked into the faster service perhaps? So what Verizon is doing is that they are forcing everybody in my neighborhood that currently uses DSL, to upgrade to FiOS but at the price of what we are paying right now. So FiOS service but with the price of DSL service? Sounds like a good deal I guess. Verizon simply did not want those of us with the DSL problems to drop them for another internet provider (I'm not going back to cable though), so this upgrade to FiOS service is their solution. I got to wait until Dec 5 before I get FiOS installed though, so I still got to put up with the crap DSL for quite a bit longer for now, which is proving to be a test of extreme patience.

Random Marry Song

Seller Passes 1 MILLION eBay Feedback Points (link)

Construction Accident (video)

F@*k Bank (video)

Dog Rape! (Video)

dog owns ice skater (video)

Special Comment: The Passage of Prop 8 (video)

Sessler's Soapbox: Get A Life, Fanboys! (video)

crazy leaders of the world (video)

Senior Adult Choir Hip Hop (video)

The Dark Knight script in pdf format (download)

Movies I've seen recently...

Recount (2008)  A-

I never would have guessed that a movie about counting votes would be so entertaining to watch, but that's exactly what "Recount" is. The movie chronicles the voting fiasco of the state of Florida on the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, and although we already know that George W. Bush became the 43rd U.S. President, it's incredibly fascinating seeing how close the race actually was. The decisions, strategies, mistakes, and overall tenacity as shown in this film by both the democratic and republican parties demonstrates what politics is all about, and this case will go down in history as one of the most significant. Director Jay Roach and writer Danny Strong have filmed one of the best movies about politics and it's made even better by the great cast, from Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson, Laura Dern, Bob Balaban, Denis Leary, Ed Begley Jr., Bruce McGill, and so many others.

W. (2008)  C+

I gotta say that "W." is not one of director Oliver Stone's best work, and it's partly because of the haphazard pacing of the film. The movie jumps around a little too much between the younger George W. Bush, him already as the 43rd U.S. President, and the dream sequences, that it was a little bit of a memory overload keeping up with the narrative. The main reason to watch this film though is to see Josh Brolin in a very strong and successful role as George W. Bush, and he deserves all the accolades he should get for his work in this movie. Interesting and fascinating to watch, but by the end of the film, I couldn't help but feel unfulfilled by what I've seen on screen.

Eagle Eye (2008)  B-

As a modern science fiction action thriller, director D.J. Caruso's "Eagle Eye" works pretty well. While the concept of a "big brother" that can see and hear everything you do isn't the most original around, there is a slight twist to the premise that keeps things interesting. The last third of the movie did require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief though, but it should still keep you intrigued enough to see how it leads to the eventual expected conclusion. Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan as the protagonists were both great in this, as well as Billy Bob Thornton who is the guy in charge of capturing them. "Eagle Eye" may not be a classic by any means, but I thought that it was still a fun film to watch.

Verizon DSL has been acting up for a couple of weeks now. It's gotten really bad this past week though. What happens is that I get intermittent internet connections, and rebooting the PC/Modem does not fix the problem. I troubleshooted it enough to know that it isn't the router causing the problem, as it still happens when I have the DSL modem directly connected to the PC. One minute of internet, then five minutes of being disconnected, or ten minutes of internet, then two minutes of being disconnected, etc... it just gets really annoying.

I called up Verizon about the problem, and after being on the phone for almost half an hour, the person finally understood that it wasn't a fault on my end, but on theirs (I do find it amusing that costumer service always first assumes that it's the customers fault). A "network of technical people" or something like that, is suppose to monitor my DSL line in the next 24-48 hours, to try and figure out what exactly the problem is. If you ask me, it's just a conspiracy to screw with me, because this problem started happening only after I cancelled getting their FiOS service installed at the last moment.

With the internet being so unreliable to me at the moment, I have been going online a little bit less than I normally do; which is either a good or bad thing. There's this one message forum I regularly visit, but haven't for over two weeks now, because it's just such a hassle to want to post a comment or read a thread that I like then all of a sudden I can't because of getting disconnected from the internet. Same thing here with this blog, when I gotta make sure that I have internet before I post something or risk the chance of losing what I just wrote and have to start over. In fact, as I'm typing this, I'm waiting for my internet to kick back in.

The only good thing I can think of about this, is that problems relating to the DSL is no where near as bad as my experience with the cable internet. If I had a full-HTML web browser on my cellphone though, I might be able to use
that instead of my PC at times like this, but it's not until I get that
Blackberry storm.